Pondering Hillary

Have some downtime today while my two candidates (McCain and Romney) drink coffee and recharge their batteries (as it were). Sitting with a conservative opinion journalist, talk turned to Hillary. "I can't believe the glee with which the press corps treating the Hillary implosion," he said. "You know, I've always thought that you understand people better and write about them better, when you have a little sympathy for them, or like them at least a bit. They have no sympathy for her." Thus, he implied, they're missing the real story.

I, personally, am not attracted to Hillary as candidate, but I agree with my conservative friend. I also think that journalists fooled themselves when they thought that showing grudging respect for her "machine campaign" was the same as being fair to her. She is stiff, she can be offputtingly practical ("false hopes," anyone?), and, again, personally, I think her decisions in the wake of her slip have been howlingly bad and deserve to be called out as such. But the voters she attracts don't see her the way reporters do (people do tear up at Hillary rallies, and get worked up about her own historic moment), or they've decided to vote for her for other reasons, whether it's experience, policy, Bill, or exactly because she is so disciplined and tough. And those are the people that will still vote for her.

Well, they will if she gives them a chance. The worst thing happening for this campaign right now is that they've finally given reporters the story they always wanted: all process, all bad, all Bill -- and fueled by leaks and rumors. (Don't get me wrong, I'm following the gossip along with everyone else, and it's catnip in a geeky, political-junkie kind of way.) But this too shall pass. News cycles are HRC's new best friends. If she can shut down the leaks and stay the course, she's shouldn't be counted out just yet.

(It occurs to me that I still haven't written a post about my own wrinkle of sympathy for Romney... maybe later.)